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hurting

“I hope you find what you’re looking for.”, she said. As I slowly walked away from her desk. Life is all about last looks, this one was no exception.

I imagined myself doing different things with my life. Going on different adventures, then what was happening before me. I never imagined coming back home. I never thought that failing was an option. As I always do, I picked myself up and started over. Starting over by going home until I come back to this fucking city. I am going home to regroup then come back to this town to be somebody. Anybody then the person I was before. Not the broken person I was when I came here.

Big cities don’t take to kindly to lonely hearts. Broken people don’t always find what they are looking for. But I will be the exception. The exception to the rule.

I walked away from her office and watched the room glitter with the sunlight. The same golden color. The same sparkle from the afternoon sun. What I would give to be outside but instead, I am saying goodbye to everything that was familiar.

Life doesn’t prepare you for goodbyes. Life doesn’t prepare you for last looks and the words that haunt you after. Instead, you move forward and hope for the best. Praying, wishing, hoping, that all of this will be a distant memory. Just another story to add in the book of life.

It’s been six years since I have been back. Six years and I still feel like like a visitor in my hometown. This doesn’t feel like home but neither did that big city. Which is why I felt the need to burn my bridges and watch them crumble behind me.

Yet, those words haunt me.

“I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

As I make another last look through the glistening rays of the sun behind me.

He says he’ll leave me if I cut my hair.
So I wear it longer on the days I see him.
When all I do is hide behind a curtain of hair to hide every scar I am feeling.

He doesn’t like it when I wear that color. It reminds him of her. So he bans me from wearing it in order to please him. I don’t hesitate. I don’t say no. I just do as I am told. To avoid an argument. To avoid the words that he holds still and strongly behind his tongue.

I am afraid to speak at times. The outcome outweighs the lasting effects of anything I could ever say. I don’t know myself at times. I was a smart girl. I was a strong girl. Now I am letting someone else dictate my thoughts and actions.

I don’t know who I am anymore, I tell myself.I am not me without you, I say out loud.

It’s not the fists I am afraid of. It’s this unseen power a person can hold over you with the mountain of words that follow. How easy it is to say how you feel and mean what you say. How easy it is to cut down a person without giving it a second thought.

I found myself saying that I’d wish he’d hit me. Something to show the world of the vile person he was. Create the villain among the sinners. All they see is my reactions to every one of his actions. All they see is my skin burning red and my tongue lashing out at everyone that defies me. All they see is my anger and his calm demeanor. Because he was always too cool and too good of a person to hurt people. He was always the cool guy in his nice kicks. He couldn’t hurt a fly they’d tell me. How I wish he’d hit me just to prove them wrong. Just to show them that I was right and they were wrong. Then all these feelings would be real not under the surface.

People always say “That would never happen to me”. I hate that. As they see a girl cover her face or hear a story of a girl who just couldn’t take it anymore. They don’t know what it’s like. They don’t know what it’s like to hide from your friends and family. To pretend your okay when your whole world is falling apart. How it feels to cut your arm in places because the words were too big of a burden to keep to yourself. So you punish yourself for being the sad expectation of who he wanted.

I was the dead weight he refused to carry, he’d often said. If I was skin and bones he would love me more. Hold me tighter. I believed him. I was stupid and I believed him.

I used to say “It would never happen to me“. That I would be one of the lucky ones to fight until my hands were red and my throat was raw. They don’t know that sometimes when a man loves too much they just ignore you. Tell you how worthless you are. How every time they see you it makes them sick. They don’t know how sometimes it’s more than physical. That words have a way of leaving bruises and scars on every inch of your skin. But they’ll never see it. They’ll never know.

They’ll never know that the reason you stopped dating is that you hear his voice in the back of your mind. That nobody will want you after he has had you. That nobody will ever love you as much as he had loved you.

I keep thinking I am writing things down, when I am really just thinking things through. I have so many things to say and find myself just keeping everything inside. Even when I am thinking I am saying everything I feel inside, I find myself keeping everything inside. I don’t know why. I am not afraid of what people think of me, and yet I find myself afraid of everything. I am in a position in my life where I find myself trusting again. Finding myself falling in love with a variety of different people. However, I still find myself keeping things inside. Today, I lost it getting into my car.

You know how we have those days where maybe we shouldn’t have gone outside. We should have stayed home with the covers completely over every inch of our bodies. Thats how I felt today. That anything could break my heart into a million pieces. Even a slight change in the weather would drive a chill down my spine and break me into pieces. It could have been the wind that touched my skin, that would make me crazy. It could have been someone looking at a person beside me, that would have driven me insane. Here I was walking toward my car, already breaking my own heart. For no good fucking reason.

I was parked in a private parking lot, I knew very well that I was. Walking up to my car, I noticed something on my windshield. Thinking I had a ticket and then realizing it was a note stating I was parking on private property. My blood started boiling and all I really wanted to do was scream at the person who wrote the note. Scream at them like a fucking crazy person. I clutched the note in my hands, until my hands became a fist. I couldn’t stop shaking, I couldn’t stop this feeling. I wanted to lose it on someone else, knowing very well that it was my fault. I wanted to blame someone for something I did. Because I was upset about my own stupidity. Embarrassed by my own actions. I wanted someone to feel my hurt and my pain. Someone, anyone, someone that doesn’t even exist.

Instead I ripped the paper into tiny shreds and threw it on the street. That would show them. Those tiny shreds of paper represented everything I was feeling. It would mean I am screaming back at them, when I am not even sure who “them” is. I keep thinking I am saying things out loud when I am really keepings to myself. I think of all these elaborate posts. How the words flow so freely in my mind and I can’t seem to get a grasp of them on paper. Then I feel like such an idiot, a complete fool of a person. Who reads this? Who is listening and do they even fucking care? My heart beats so fast when all I want to do is scream out every obscenity I can think of and I don’t know why.

I can’t explain all this aggression. Some days I want to blame a variety of different things. I want to blame my depression, I want to blame my anxiety, I want to blame it on everything and everyone. Blame it on the past. Blame it on my present surroundings. Blame it on myself and my inability to keep it together. Some days it’s just easier to break my own heart. Easier to be the villain because thats how everyone treats me. Because even when you say nothing, everyone believes you’re hiding everything. I get those moments where I want to hurt people as they have done to me. Maybe my heart will stop breaking for once, maybe it won’t hurt as bad to be so honest. Maybe I will be able to rid myself of these feelings once and for all.

But at the end of the day, I am the one crying in my car in empty parking lots on private property. I am the crazy one. I am the one that can’t keep it together. I am the absolute worst and everyone knows it.

I don’t know why I say the things I do. Or if I mean them to begin with. The little green monster comes out to throw everything upside down. Throw salt on all the wounds, to feel bitterness through the sweet. Sometimes I just want to say sorry for the words that slur out wrong. The words that come out in anger instead of love. I wouldn’t be so bold if it wasn’t for things beyond my control. Wouldn’t be so bold if it wasn’t for every last sip of this never ending cup. Its the liquid courage that makes me so courageous. The magic feather of bravery inside every bottle, can, or glass.

How much of what I say is really how I feel inside. How much of what I think is based off of ignorant bliss, hidden inside every tall can or glass. I cannot be this crazy. I cannot be this truly hurt. I cannot be so brave in my skin when I am frightened by my actions. If I mean what I say, what does it mean when I’ve had a helping hand at this.

I don’t mean everything I say, do I?
Not every word of it.
Maybe I do.

I can’t help but feel slightly embarrassed by my actions. A simple drink can turn to three or four, and you find yourself telling secrets to people you shouldn’t. Sometimes I don’t want to keep so many secrets. Sometimes I just want to write them all down for everyone to see. I want to say “I miss you” when I can’t bring myself that sense of honesty. With this drink I feel a powerless power. A sense of normalcy amongst all the crazy conservative feelings. I could do anything, say anything, and yet, I find myself wishing that I hadn’t. I don’t like the way my drink tastes so bitter with my own sour thoughts. Yet, I polish off this drink and beg for more just like it.

You don’t realize how much you drink until you stop. You don’t realize what you’ve said until the flashbacks come back to haunt you. Nostalgia has a funny way of coming back to remind you of things you’ve long forgotten. In a familiar song, in a familiar scent, in a familiar drink, as you watch yourself continue to drink to forget. But I never forget. Everything always comes back, right after I said it wouldn’t hurt anymore. I watch my demeanor change from bad to worse. Watching how my speech changes and watch how easier the words go from my tongue to my lips. Its my actions I want to reconsider, its my words I want to forget. Its everything I’ve said that I can’t help but apologize for. We all want to be accountable for our actions. We all wish we could take back all the nasty things we’ve said.

Maybe I truly am sorry for all the things I have said when I was drunk. In the end what I have said will finally set me free. Allow me to be less bitter, allow me to be less hateful, allow me to stop being such a fucking bitch. Liquor doesn’t make monsters, it just helps the monsters be more vicious. I am tired of being a monster. I dedicate this last drink to you. This last moment, this last taste, everything. I am sorry if I have ever hurt you. I am sorry if I said any nasty things about you. Above all, I am sorry if I was never sorry to begin with.

The weather has been changing. Before you know it, it’ll go from sunny days to overcasts skies. From summer skin to winter coats and layers. I hate the summer and it’s over exposure of skin, that I never feel comfortable showing. I am in no way a prude but my insecurities seem to make me more conservative. It’s a piece of myself I never like to show. Its this never ending process of learning to love your body, when you’re still in the process of accepting this skin.

I could lose all the weight and still feel self conscious of my skin, and the abnormalities of my body. I’ve watched my body go from big to medium to large again. I’ve watched my skin stretch and rest on different parts of my body. And all I’ve wanted is to cover up never show the world. Hide under layers of clothes to distract myself from what’s underneath. I wonder if I will ever get over this feeling. If being so body conscious changes over the years. They say it changes when you get older, but what if it doesn’t. I have to pretend to be comfortable and accepting, when I just want to rip my skin off. Take this image I see of myself that I know no one else can see, and pretend it doesn’t exist. I want to hide behind trees and behind overcast skies. Where shadows can mask my body and its abnormalities. We are praised for our bones and our skin that stretches over our skeletons. Sometimes when the weather changes you can’t help but remember this is a process. Bodies have this ability to change but I don’t feel like that.

I have become so comfortable with hiding at home and avoiding the outside world. Avoiding a million different emotions, in favor of hiding in this misery and self pity. It’s the heat that drives me crazy. That makes me believe I can’t be myself. I can’t hide from the heat, I only expose myself more to keep from being hot. But in the cold, I hide behind layers of fabric to hide what I don’t love about myself. I’ll never be perfect and I’ll never be pretty. I’ll be stuck under this skin that stretches for as long as I can see. One day I’ll be more accepting, but in this unforgiving heat, I can’t see myself pretending.

I could spend countless hours being upset for all the wrong reasons. Most of the times I do just that. Become angry for things beyond my control, or angry for things I shouldn’t be angry about. I often forget there are other things bigger in this world. My hate and my anger over power all my light and I turn completely dark. I am the monster that is green with envy for a million different things. At this point, I don’t even know why anymore.

When you are hurting you forget about human kindness. When the paranoia of the world happens, you tend to forget about the kindness of humanity. You become angry with your surroundings, that has caused you to look differently at people. That life is meant to be used and hurt, and you’ve become very good at playing the victim. Lately I’ve played my victim role with pristine condition. I feel like everyone hates me for obvious reasons that I can’t understand. Hates me for every little thing that’s caused me to be paranoid toward everything and everyone. Everything I do is wrong. Everything everyone else does is always right. I can’t sleep when its these thoughts that keep me up at night. I watch people become ghosts to me and because I am too fucked up to listen, I allow them to be. At the same time, I don’t want my negativity to transfer to them. So I keep a close distance away from everyone until I no longer feel I am doing harm to anyone else.

Every so often people make you forget that. A smile from a stranger, a hello from a friend, something that shows you’re alive. Something that makes you feel alive, that people can crash into you and make you feel something. Something, anything. From this numbing feeling inside that takes away all your light. It’s not that I feel dead inside. I just feel sick. That a body snatcher has taken reign of my body and oozing out this sickening feeling. I hate it. It’s weird how simple conversations can change your whole mood. I feel angry for so many things beyond my control. Angry for the fact that I am angry. Upset over the fact that I can’t control how I feel anymore. Is this who I really am? Is this what sadness can do to a person? Make them a shell of their former self. I can’t be honest with people, with out terrifying them with reality. My reality is far more complicated then I show. All I do is go through the motions and cover everything up the best that I can.

I didn’t believe that anything could take away this anger. I was so overwhelmed with this feeling of darkness, I didn’t believe the light could come in. Somehow words snap you out of your feelings and before you know it you’re smiling again. Laughing, thinking, feeling human again. When you are seconds away from a meltdown, someone says the words to snap you out of that feeling. You feel it from your toes to your fingertips. Anything but the feeling you felt before. It’s weird how nice people are to you when you’re seconds away from a meltdown. As if they can sense all your problems and take them away from you. I guess I have been so used to everything going wrong that when things go right, I am afraid of what to do. All it takes is a few words from a stranger to bring me back to life. Sometimes that’s all we need to feel alive. Something to take away all this dark, even if it’s just for a little bit.

I didn’t have a meltdown today. I am slowly starting to feel like myself again.

Everything was going to be alright. I printed out my tickets, laid out my clothes and had every intention of going. Anything to get out of the house and keep driving. Anything to clear my thoughts. But I didn’t want too. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. People will say it was because my team has been playing terribly, but I knew better. When you’re depressed even the things you love become burdens in your life. Going to that game felt like a burden to me. I didn’t have it in me to go and feel stuck. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be alone, I just didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to go through this whole routine, this whole superstition. I didn’t feel good, I didn’t feel safe, and for the first time, nothing felt right. I hate admitting that. Admitting I have flaws in all the wrong times for all the wrong reasons. I just couldn’t bring myself to do something I loved, out of fear of my own emotions. I can’t control them anymore.

I drank for the first time in a long time last night. Drank just to keep my nerves from going insane. It’s weird how alcohol makes you feel when you haven’t had a lot of it. Maybe I am crazy. Everything that I once loved is turning into everything I hate, and I can’t understand it. I feel as I am not good to anyone. I have disconnected myself from the world and watching everything happen in fast forward. Alienating myself away from everyone. I don’t want my negativity to rub off on anyone. Therefore I keep everything to myself and just find way to pass time.

Anything, everything and moving on.

I was suppose to go to a baseball game and prove to myself, I could still do things that I love. Still have this feeling that at any moment I could fall in love all over again. Instead I opened the blinds and watched the sun rise and the sun fall from the sky. Cascading vibrant colors and begging me to go outside. It didn’t seem right to waste the day. Didn’t seem right to feel this way, but I did. I couldn’t help myself but continue to look out the window and watch the seconds turn to minutes and then minutes to hours. I don’t want to be here, but I’m too afraid too leave.

Disappearing is easy. You fall through the cracks and blend in with your over powering surroundings. If there was a how to guide of “How to disappear completely”, you’d have written all the books. It’s always harder to forget but you’ve made it easy to remember. You become a ghost of your former life, just a fragment of a story people tell at parties. The person you were and the person you used to be. All of which have nothing to do with you. Nothing to do with me. Nothing to do with who we’re trying to be.

I can change.
I can be what you want me to be.

You didn’t have the time to wait and I didn’t have the strength to see myself. Through the darkness, the trenches, and the misery. That was then. People can change. I can change and I tell myself constantly. I can be better then what you want me to be. I can be perfect. I can be happy. I can watch this madness take over my veins and infect my bloodstream, pretend it doesn’t exist. Pretend that ghosts stop haunting even after the sun comes up. I was never good at hiding and you were never good at pretending. Even I can’t pretend as good as you do.

Then you fail miserably.

Before you know it you’re right back to the drawing board. Reinventing yourself. Hiding all of your past failures and pretending a part of you didn’t exist. It breaks you up inside, but you never tell anyone. You bleed, you fall, and you never tell a single soul. You hide every flaw so perfectly, just as well as you guard every inch of your heart. You disappeared into the fog and like the mist you reappear. Reappearing only a fraction of the person you used to be. So hollow and vacant and still, I can’t help but want all of you.

I was wrong for everything. Wrong for wanting the imperfections and expecting perfection. Wrong for believing in changes that actions could never deliver. Wrong for believing in the ghost of you and me and all the memories that followed. Still I wanted it all. Everything and in-between. Maybe I expected too much. Maybe I wanted more than I deserved. Still I wanted ghosts to reappear in the forms of you and me. But I can’t have you. I can’t be who you want me to be. The more time passes the more you become what you always were. A mystery to the people that you surround yourself with. Like the ghost you were, you disappear completely.

I can’t do this anymore.
I don’t need you anymore.
I don’t want anything to do with you.

You never mean to hurt the ones you love. You say the words that cut down their roots, but you never meant to break their trust. You love and protect, you forgive and forget. Apologizes are just words that bleed rust but have no meaning anyway.

Everything hurts.

I didn’t mean to show you all my fears. I didn’t mean to cry when people said goodbye. I didn’t mean to pry in the things that had no meaning to me anyway. Here I lie with the words that seem unclean, that hurt the longer I pour salt on all these wounds. It only hurts if you cry. Only hurts if you focus on the pain. This blood is thicker than water, but the water has been washed clean.

I have had a problem with food for as long as I can remember. Longer than I would like to admit. These days I wonder if those fears are my karma for my current situations. I haven’t been the kindest to myself and in this new era of body image, owning who you are, it’s easier said than done. I’ll be completely honest, its hard to transform 28 years thinking in a matter of a short months or years. For every 10 good days, there are 20 not so good days. For everything and in-between, food has been my scapegoat for every way of thinking. Food has a way of bringing the good with the bad. Triggering memories and forgotten expectations. You think about how much you didn’t care in your younger years, and now as an adult this need to be socially conscious about everything you put in front of you. Now a days, I fear food more than I enjoy it. I hold it at an arms length against me. Separating myself from my past and my expectations of my future, not realizing the repercussions of my present. It makes me think about everything I’ve done to distance myself from food, when all I’ve ever wanted to do was enjoy it.

Recovery is a pain in the ass. Its hard to tell someone that hasn’t been through what you have, how you feel. I have felt really alone in my recovery. Its easy to put up a positive front, to post a photo of myself eating or enjoying food but reality settles in. I will always see myself as 70 lbs over weight. I will always think twice about what I eat. I will always feel guilty about over eating and feel this need to punish myself. It’s hard to tell someone that what I see in the mirror paralyzes my way of thinking. It has been a long time since I have truly enjoyed a meal. A good fucking meal. Something someone put heart and soul into. I am not going to be an asshole, I’ve had great meals but so many of these meals build up on my fears. Its genuinely hard to enjoy them without feeling squeamish or guilt. Most of the time, I feel guilty about the things I eat. It’s something I have to live with that makes me so indescieve about where or what to eat. How do you tell someone I can’t eat what I love out of fear of the outcome? You can’t. Being in another country helps. I don’t feel guarded. I don’t feel the pressure to be anything. While the fear still plagues me, it doesn’t hurt as much as it does at home. Its weird to be in places with different customs then your own. To adapt yourself into things you have stopped doing at home. Sometimes I forget to eat in the rush of getting to and from places. Often times I overindulge in the things I love but mostly I don’t. Then I feel guilty of eating and I psych myself out. I don’t know. Being far from home I don’t feel as self conscious as I am used too.

It’s easy to say I am on vacation, I can do what I want. To get in this gluttonous stage and have no self control, but I can’t do that. It’s lonely to eat alone but it’s lonely to have to come to realization that you can’t eat the way you are used too. We settled into a restaurant inside the town square. After looking over at the menu, we decided to take our chances on a little restaurant with it’s rustic pirate vibes. I wasn’t expecting much. Just enough to fill my belly and provide the energy I needed for the rest of the day. I get really anxious when I eat. A part of me still believes I am 70 lbs overweight and another part of me still believes I will make myself sick after eating. For the longest time my meals where based on what was easier to come out at will or what would get me full the fastest. If I ate exactly how I wanted to eat, I would open up the wounds that have been trying to heal. If I don’t eat, its another series of triggers, I can’t contain. I usually order to avoid suspicion and times I don’t like what I order. When you are comfortable you forget the silly instances that make up your anxieties. Sitting on the bench in the resturant, I didn’t look for an easy way out. I wanted to try everything. I wanted to eat everything and for once I didn’t want to feel guilty about what I ate. It felt like we were eating for hours when really it had been minutes, since we had ordered. Mere minutes as the plates started arriving. Each plate sizzling, oozing, and exhuming delicious flavors and tastes. It didn’t end at the first or second plate. It didn’t stop with the drinks, the momentum continued, as we talked about family stories, family traditions, and inner jokes between us all. As each plate reached our table, another plate would disappear.

It didn’t hurt. This layer of anxiousness shed off my skin and I felt something I hadn’t felt in all the meals, I have consumed over the past years. I felt love. I felt hunger to try everything. Even if I felt guilty, it wasn’t going to hurt me. I had been feeling self-conscious about my outcomes that I never focused on my journey. How alone I felt in my battles and lonely I felt in my war. No matter how many times I heard positivity, I was focused on the negative outcome. Focusing on the mirror that was haunted with two faces. As the plates started dwindling down, as my belly felt full but content, I looked around at the faces I saw before me. This is my journey, my battle but I don’t feel alone. This is love I feel in front of me and after every course, I am going to be okay. Maybe I’ll never get better but at least today, the journey doesn’t seem as bad anymore.